Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/19

Rh MOZART 9 third set of sonatas, dedicated to the queen ; and wrote an anthem for four voices entitled God is our Refuge, for presentation to the British Museum. 1 In July 1764 he played at Tunbridge Wells, and soon afterwards Leopold Mozart caught a severe illness, during the continuance of which he stayed with Dr Randall in Five Fields Row, now Lower Ebury Street, Chelsea. On 12th February 1765 the children gave a concert at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and another on 13th May at Hickford s Room. After this they gave private performances at the Swan and Hoop Tavern, Cornhill ; and on 1 7th September the family left England for the Hague, where they remained some time, and where in March 1766 the young composer made his first attempt at an oratorio, commanding in Holland a success as great as that he had already attained in London, and astonishing his hearers at Haarlem by performing on the then largest organ in the world. It would be impossible within the limits of a sketch like the present to follow the history of this gifted boy through all its extraordinary details. Towards the close of 1766 we find him at home in Salzburg, dili gently studying Fux s Gradus ad Parnassum. In Septem ber 1767 he paid a second visit to Vienna, and at the suggestion of the emperor Joseph II. composed an opera bufia, La Finta Semplice, which, though acknowledged by the company for which it was written to be &quot; an incom parable work,&quot; was suppressed by a miserable cabal. The archbishop of Salzburg hearing of this commanded a representation of the rejected work in his palace, and appointed the young composer his &quot;maestro di capella.&quot; The office, however, was merely an honorary one, and, since it did not involve compulsory residence, Leopold Mozart determined to complete his son s education in Italy, to which country he himself accompanied him in December 1769. Wolfgang, now nearly fourteen years old, was already an accomplished musician, needing experience rather than instruction, and gaining it every day. His talent was universally acknowledged. At Milan he received a com mission to write an opera for the following Christmas. At Bologna he found firm friends in the venerable Padre Martini and the still more famous sopranist Fari- nelli. At Florence he became so tenderly attached to Thomas Linley, a boy of extraordinary promise and ex actly his own age, that he parted from him with tears, which seemed almost prophetic for Linley was drowned in England at the early age of twenty-two. Arriving in Rome on the Wednesday in Holy Week, he went at once to the Sistine Chapel to hear the celebrated Miserere of Gregorio Allegri, which, on returning to his hotel, he wrote down from memory note for note a feat which created an immense sensation, for at that time the singers were forbidden to transcribe the music on pain of excommuni cation. In May he played at the Conservatorio della Pieta, in Naples, where the audience, attributing his power to the magical effect of a ring, insisted upon its removal from his finger. Returning to Rome towards the end of June, he was invested by the pope with the order of &quot; The Golden Spur,&quot; of which he was made a cavaliere, 2 an honour which he prized the more highly because, not many years before, it had been conferred upon Gluck. In July he paid a second visit to Bologna, when the Acca- demia Filarmonica, after subjecting him to a severe examina tion, admitted him to the rank of &quot; compositore,&quot; notwith standing a statute restricting this preferment to candidates of at least twenty years old. The exercise which gained him this distinction is a four -part composition in strict 1 The original autograph of this is now numbered Select case C, 21, d.&quot; 2 Auratx militise eques. counterpoint on the antiphon Quserite primum, written in the severe ecclesiastical style of the 16th century and abounding in points of ingenious imitation and device. 3 In October 1770 Wolfgang and his father returned to Milan for the completion and production of the new opera. The libretto, entitled Mitridate, Re di Ponto, was furnished by an obscure poet from Turin, to the great disappointment of the young maestro, who had hoped to set a drama by Metastasio. The progress of the work was interrupted from time to time by the miserable intrigues which seem inseparable from the lyric stage, exacerbated in this particular case by the jealousy of the resident professors, who refused to believe either that an Italian opera could be written by a native of Germany, or that a boy of four teen could manage the orchestra of La Scala, at that time the largest in Europe. Fortunately the detractors were effectively silenced at the first full rehearsal ; and on the 26th of December Wolfgang took his seat at the harpsichord and directed his work amidst a storm of genuine applause. The success of the piece was unprecedented. It had a continuous run of twenty nights, and delighted even the most captious critics. Wolfgang s triumph was now complete. After playing with his usual success in Turin, Verona, Venice, Padua, and other Italian cities, he returned with his father to Salzburg in March 1771, commissioned to compose a grand dramatic serenata for the approaching marriage of the archduke Ferdinand, and an opera for La Scala, to be performed during the season of 1773. The wedding took place at Milan on 21st October; and the serenata, Ascanio in Alba, was produced with an effect which com pletely eclipsed Hasse s new opera, Ruggiero, composed for the same festivity. The empress Maria Theresa was so delighted with it that in addition to his fee she pre sented Wolfgang with a watch set with diamonds and enamelled with her portrait ; and Hasse, forgetful of his own defeat, generously uttered the often-quoted prophecy, &quot;This boy will cause us all to be forgotten.&quot; 4 During the absence of Wolfgang and his father the good archbishop of Salzburg died ; and in the spring of the year 1772 Hieronymus, count of Colloredo, was elected in his stead, to the horror of all who were acquainted with his real character. The Mozart family did their best to propitiate their new lord, for whose installation Wolfgang, after his return from Milan, composed an opera, II Sogno di Scipione ; but the newly-elected prelate had no taste for art, and was utterly incapable of appreciating the charm of any intellectual pursuit whatever. For the present, however, things went on smoothly. In October the father and son once more visited Milan for the preparation and production of the new opera, Lucio Silla, which was produced at Christmas with a success quite equal to that of Mitridate, and ran between twenty and thirty nights. Unfortunately, however, these artistic triumphs were far from profitable in their pecuniary aspect. The family grew poorer and poorer ; and the archbishop Hieronymus was not the man to rescue them from penury. In the meantime Wolfgang continued to produce new works with incredible rapidity. In 1775 he composed an opera for Munich, La Finta Giardiniera, produced on 13th January. In the following March he set to music Metastasio s dramatic cantata, II Re Pastore. Concertos, , masses, symphonies, sonatas, and other important works, *~ both vocal and instrumental, followed each other without a pause. And this fertility of invention, instead of ex- 3 An exact copy of this most interesting production, transcribed from the original autograph still preserved among the archives of the Accademia, will be found in the appendix to Holmes s Life of Mozart (London, 1845). 4 &quot; Questo ragazzo ci fara dimenticar tutti. &quot; XVII. 2